Historically, wireless subscriber units have had the ability to receive a message, and perform standard functions in response to the message receipt such as storing the message, displaying the message, or alerting the user of receipt of the message.
Today's wireless subscriber units are no longer restricted to just these standard functions. Manufacturers of wireless subscriber units are now adding special function applications such as address books, schedulers, stock managers, weather alerts, traffic reports and news briefs to their standard messaging capability. Some devices can even access the Internet for sending e-mail and browsing World Wide Web pages.
One drawback of today's wireless subscriber units is the inability to modify a portion of a received message and use that modified portion in the operation of the special function applications. As the special function applications become more prevalent in the industry, and become more critical as a business tool, the requirement for such a capability increases.